Zaid Ibrahim says Mahathir deserves better
Former minister says it is not right to treat the former prime minister with disrespect for voicing questions on the minds of ordinary people.
PETALING JAYA: Former Law Minister Zaid Ibrahim said the Umno he knew and the Umno today were very different.
“No, no, no. When I was in Umno, the party was not managed like this,” he said about his long years in Umno.
Speaking to FMT, the former Umno minister said the situation under former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was not as bad as it was today.
Zaid said the current leadership had no sense of respect and gratitude towards Dr Mahathir who had dedicated decades of his life towards building and making Malaysia a well-known country.
Labelling Umno as a vindictive, “no-class” party, Zaid, a strong proponent of the Save Malaysia movement said Mahathir did not deserve to be treated the way he was being treated for voicing the questions playing on the minds of people.
“They are very mean people, treating Dr Mahathir as if he is an enemy of the people, of the country. And that is not how you treat a former leader.”
The Umno Supreme Council decided last Friday that the Government should cease funding Mahathir’s Perdana Leadership Foundation.
According to Prime Minister Najib Razak, this is because Dr Mahathir had used the foundation’s office in Putrajaya as a centre to meet and formulate plans aimed at toppling the “democratically-elected” Government through unconstitutional means.
Zaid, however, said the move would only see Mahathir coming out bigger and stronger.
He agreed that the recent actions of the Umno leadership were largely a result of the confidence gained following Umno’s landslide victories in the recent twin by-elections in Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar.
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Saying Najib should not forget who had brought him up, Zaid said: “Anyway, the Save Malaysia movement will go on. We have a long road to travel and we’ll do it.”